For PERSPECTIVES Vol. 4 No. 2 [May-June 2001]   

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An Appreciated Word 

Just wanted to say that this is my first visit to your site and I think you have done a wonderful job.

--Barbara Leger

Location of Herod's Temple 

While it seems to me possible that Roman engineers could have erected a stable wall with footings in the Kidron Valley rising the height indicated by Martin, I'm not sure the original temple builders would have had the resources to invest in such a project. If such a wall, enclosing the Gihon Spring, had been in place at the time of King Hezekiah's preparations for siege, would he have felt the need to construct his famous tunnel?

Let's assume, however, that there was a Herodian structure where Martin places it. The Herodian engineers would have placed the foundations on bed rock. In so doing they would have prepared flat surfaces on that rock upon which to place their foundation ashlars. Assuming that the Romans in their anger "left [not] one stone upon another," would they have erased the evidence of the workings of the bed rock, to confound future archaeologists? I doubt it. If the walls of the Temple platform were where Martin places them, there should still be good evidence of their former presence.

After reading Martin's book, I used my computer to search out each occurrence in Josephus' works of the word "temple." I then assembled for my own reading those references which could tell me anything about the location of the Herodian Temple relative to either the Antonia Fortress or the city walls. While Martin's writing seemed convincing as I read it, when I read Josephus' description of the assault on the city, on the Antonia and on the Temple, it was not so clear to me that the conventional interpretation (Haram esh-Sharif as Temple Mount) was in error.

Where Josephus writes about the Romans breaking down the foundations of part of the Antonia to make a broad ramp to create better access to the temple ("Wars"; Book 6, Chap. 2, Sec. 7), his scene fits perfectly with the present day condition of the northwest corner of Haram esh-Sharif and the assumption of a Temple on the platform of Haram esh-Sharif. If the Temple was in Martin's location, any breaking down of foundations of Martin's Antonia would have been on the southern wall of the Haram esh-Sharif to make a ramp up to Martin's Temple, but the foundations of that wall stand to this day are in tact extending above present grade level, whereas, returning to the northwest corner of the Haram esh-Sharif, part of what is conventionally taken to be the Antonia could have been knocked down to its foundations and use to build a ramp up to the platform.

With regard to Martin's concept of dual bridges between the Antonia and the Temple, we really don't know how things looked at the northwest corner of the platform. There could have been some bridging between the Antonia and the platform.

If the Haram esh-Sharif was a Roman fortress, why was such care taken to place only artwork acceptable to Jews in the vaults above the entrance tunnels leading up from the southern steps.

If the Haram esh-Sharif was the Antonia, it seems a bit of a surprise to have found the "place of trumpeting" stone positioned below the southwest corner of the Haram esh-Sharif. It could have been moved there from some place farther south, but I believe it was found among other fallen masonry as though it had been in the same place since 70 C.E.

Fascinating book - no open and shut case. It would be exciting if Martin were right. I think his idea merits an attempt to find evidence of the former presence of the massive wall rising from the Kidron Valley. If a thorough search for prepared surfaces on bed rock does not reveal any, I think one could then dismiss the Martin location.

--Robert A. de Forest, McMinnville, OR 

Dr. Martin responds:

Let me say that this review presents no major historical proofs whatever that I am wrong -- just guessing about engineering matters. Notice what he avoids. What about the two historical references that there was an inexhaustible spring within the Temple precincts? Those references clearly put the Temple over the Gihon Spring. What about Josephus's clear statements as an eyewitness that the eastern wall of the Temple was in the deepest part of the Kidron and that the southeastern corner was 450 feet in height?

What about Eleazer's statement that the only thing left in Jerusalem three years after the war was the Roman encampment/fortress (the first thing the Romans did was to construct a fortress for the legions)? What about the eyewitness report of Josephus that the buildings and walls of Jerusalem were "leveled to the ground" just as Christ said? What about the fact that Josephus said Fort Antonia was so large it could contain "cities" (plural), and that it easily housed a Roman legion (5000 men plus an equal number of support people)? What about the fact that the Bordeaux Pilgrim said that the walls  of the Haram were part of the Praetorium, and that the Piazensa Pilgrim said that "Christ's footprint" was on the "oblong rock" that was the standard feature of that Praetorium, and that "Christ's footprint" was believed to be on the Rock under the Dome of the Rock even in Saladin's time (1187 C.E.)?

Clearly, the historical evidence points to the Haram as being Fort Antonia. I could go on and on, but the gentleman should read my book and read it more carefully. He should also give due regard to the historical evidence, which he carefully avoided even though he was lavish with his "engineering" criticisms.

What do I think of Mr. de Forest's review? What a superficial and trivial review of my evidence in my book! He avoided all of my main evidence and concentrated on improvable archaeological and architectural matters without reference to my strong and powerful historical facts.

--Ernest Martin

Palestinian Woman's Account Patently Offensive 

I was dismayed to see such vagrant displays of politics relating to the Arab-Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the homepage of the Biblical Archaeology website. I thought that Biblical Archeology was about that-not about the current strife between Israel and the PA. Not only is the article "Palestinian Woman gives her inside story of the Israel-Palestinian conflict" factually wrong in many cases and biased (which is to be expected since it is from the "Palestinian" side), it has no place on your website. Furthermore, if you are going to post such stories, you should take the time and energy to post one from "the other side, i.e. the Israeli viewpoint". 

On another note, since when is Qumran in Palestine (which I gather you mean to refer to territory in the Palestinian Authority, like Jericho, Bethlehem, etc.) and not in Israel. Last week when I drove by it on my way to the Dead Sea, it was still in Israel.

--Kayla Ship

I was very interested to see that your site has become a political forum for the current Middle East conflict. You clearly state in your History and Purpose page that you are unique in your focus on biblical archaeology, so why have you become involved in a current political conflict, and only one side of the conflict. Your whole purpose proposes to be about biblical archaeology. If you do feel it necessary to be a sound bite, than I suggest you hear from the Israeli side as well.

One particular fact that has been conveniently unnoticed by the Palestinian woman featured on your home page, is that there are 40 000 armed Palestinians, most trained by the CIA, it is not just stones. We all saw on television in the summer (including the BBC and CNN) Palestinian school children being trained in army camps to use guns, again, it is not just stones, it is not even stones, it is rocks, Molotov cocktails, live ammunition and bombs.

The Palestinians should keep children out of it, if they are not put in the front line they will not be killed, is it that hard to work out. I am not justifying any deaths or violence, all I want to say is there are two sides to every story and beyond this if people bothered to print facts instead of opinion it would help both sides. Please remove the blatant bias from your website, it is misleading, imbalanced and distorted. Please stick to biblical archaeology. A response would be appreciated.

--Eva Chapper

I am outraged by your site bibarch.com and the front page article: Palestinian woman gives her inside story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Birzeit (Palestine).

As a student and professor of biblical archeology, I would hope to find your site full of interesting and newsworthy articles. Unfortunately I find factual mistakes in every article, mis-named locations, misquoted biblical stories - all in all too many to even name in this short correspondence.

But, most importantly, I would hope that an editor of such a site and magazine would FULLY comprehend how the history of war and strife has cause major devastation to the physical land as well as to all inhabitants of the land throughout its history. As an editor with that knowledge, I would hope that you would encourage the historically unprecedented peace process, a process intended to provide peace to all inhabitants and visitors, grant unrestricted access to holy sites, build a strong economy based on the merits of all. However, printing an inflammatory article such as: Palestinian woman gives her inside story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Birzeit (Palestine) which is full of hatred, anger, inaccuracies too numerous to even begin to list, should be an embarrassment to your site and magazine.

How dare you encourage more destruction to a land which should belong to all and in which there are people working hard to achieve such a goal. Stick to reporting on Biblical Archeology and leave the war reports to the professionals. You have enough problems with the facts that you do post on your site without bringing more upon yourselves by posting such heinous rhetoric.

--Miriam Tuchman

Usually people accuse us of being pro-Israeli. We agree that in the item by the Palestinian woman, who happens to be a graduate student in archaeology, there is bias. Perhaps we should not have published it, however, to us it showed her incredible state of mind. This website has many thousands of visitors and for the most part they are well-informed people possessing well-honed critical thinking skills. We thought the piece would aid our viewers in coming to the conclusion that so long as Palestinians believe such things that there can be no peace in Israel.

No matter how many concessions Israel makes to the Palestinian Arabs it will never satisfy them. With each concession by Israel the Palestinian Arabs are only more resolute in their determination to acquire all of Eretz Israel. So, we do not endorse her rhetoric but simply want to shake our American viewers out of their complacency. In our opinion the American public tends to think that the USA can fix the problem assuming Israelis and Palestinians are just like Americans. They do not seem to grasp the nature of these cultures as compared with their own. They also do not seem to understand that the USA's interest in the Middle East, outside of the land of Israel, is simply oil. If it were not for oil the typical American, and our government, would pay no more attention to the Levant than to Nepal except for religious tourism.

While biblical archeology is the main concern of this website it is not our only concern. On our websites we intend to comment and report on any and all issues be they ancient or contemporary as we feel compelled.

--editor

Location of Biblical Nazareth 

I understand that from the 1958-1961 excavations of Caesarea Maritima the name Nazareth is found in an inscription on a stone and is applied to a site/village/town/city supposedly given that name and referenced in the Bible as a genuine name of the site/village/town/city now occupied by the Israeli town of Nazareth.

I need confirmation of the finding of the inscription and the name of the present owner of the stone [which may the Israeli Museum in Jerusalem].

In the New Testament are to be found many references that suggest Nazareth was an actual name of a town, esp. where Jesus is said to have been taken to Nazareth after birth, the phrase "Jesus of Nazareth" meant that Nazareth was the correct biblical name of the town in which Jesus lived. The NT claims that an OT prophecy was that the Messiah/JC would be from Nazareth, but such an OT prophecy does not exist, and there is a question of whether or not Nazareth was in biblical times the correct name of the town currently called Nazareth or if another town was in biblical times named Nazareth.

--Bob Kroepel

You can learn of the inscription from Caesarea Maritima in Jack Finegan's The Archaeology of the New Testament (Finegan 1992:46). We do not know who has possession of this artifact and suggest you contact the Israel Antiquities Authority for more information. We know of no credible biblical archaeologist that seriously doubts that the biblical Nazareth of the New Testament is other than the ancient portion of the present day Galilean city of Nazareth. Perhaps the best summary of current scholarly understanding is "Nazareth" in the Israel Exploration Society's The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (Israel Exploration Society 1992:1103). 

Matthew in his gospel states that "[Joseph] came and resided in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, �He shall be called a Nazarene�" (Matthew 2:23). This appears to be implied in Isaiah 11:1 where Isaiah utilized the word "branch", n�tser, the apparent root of the place name Nazareth. See "He Shall Be Called a Nazarene", by Ray A. Pritz, published in the Jerusalem Perspective (Pritz 1991:3-4).

--editor

Jesus' Diet�Fishweed?

I am not a Christian, so it matters little to me if Jesus was or was not a vegetarian from a religious stand point.  However, I am a vegetarian and if it is possible that Jesus was a vegetarian, it may affect whether or not others may become vegetarian; which I believe would be a blessing to one's spirit and to the earth. Isn't it true that there is a debate concerning the breaking of bread and fish given to the masses? The debate being that the word that we have interpreted as "fish" may actually have been the word for "fishweed"; a very popular food of the times especially with the class of people Jesus would have been feeding?

Also, on another note, it is in part, the hypocrisy of the Biblical Text its' self that has lead me away from Christianity. You say that in the New Testament it is apparent that Jesus was a meat eater. Well, which testament is one to abide by? Or is it up to us to know the Will of God?  Obviously, it must be up to each individual Christian to pick and choose what he/she believes, otherwise all Christians would know that eating pork is just as much (and just as big ) a sin as homosexuality. 

     --Megan N. Broyles

The context and sense of the Greek words translated fish in the New Testament is the flesh of fish (I Corinthians 15:39; Luke 5:6, 9; John 6:9; Matthew 7:10, 17:27). Today you can buy dried fish weed, Lagarosiphon major, at a good pet store. What makes you think that the plant we now call fish weed was referred to as fish weed two thousand years ago in Greek and Hebrew? How do you know that the diet of the Jews of the early first century CE was, as you say, "a very popular food of the times especially with the class of people Jesus would have been feeding?" We would like to see your archaeological evidence and your ancient literary evidence of this.

--editor

The Torah

I am speaking with a Torah-observant Jew and he states the Jews should not believe Paul over God, about the law having been annulled/abolished. And, I can see his point simply because I cannot find anywhere in the old testament that lets the Jews know, one day, they will no longer have to keep the law. The law itself states many times, they are to keep it 'for ever', to all their generations, etc. I am having a difficult time putting together a response to him because of this. Jeremiah 31:31 mentions the new covenant, yet- how would they have known from that the old would be done away with when the new was instituted? The other covenants kind of ran parallel to one another, not abolishing one another. Is there any insight or help you can give to me to answer this rabbi? Or, come to the discussion yourself? My initial argument was concerning the word 'olam' and that this word does not signify and absolute endlessness of a thing, though it translates- 'for ever', 'everlasting' covenant even of the Sinaitic. Jonah was in fish for ever olam- 3 days/nights. He said even Paul didn't use that argument so it's not a good one! Please help me with this if you can.

The compound nature of your question complicates it a bit. So, rephrasing it might clarify the issue. Can one show from the Hebrew Scriptures alone that the Siniatic covenant could have ended? This precludes reference to the New Testament, the Mishna, and the Talmud. If you think about it, this is the situation the first Christians encountered for the first decades of the Church of God.

Now if the apostle Paul was not able to convince the religious Jews of his day concerning this matter what makes us think we can change the opinion of a rabbi hardened by nearly 2,000 of religious resistance and retrenchment? For example, Rabbi Maurice Lamm writes that neither God nor the children of Israel can end the Siniatic covenant "at any point in history or for any reason whatsoever" (Lamm 1991:101). 

Now then, the Hebrew Scriptures also state that the dynasty of David would not end. As far as we know, no one can prove Davidic descent any more.  Also, the prophets predicted a new covenant, in which the basic terms of relationship would be greatly altered, and forgiveness would be given without any reference to the sacrificial system. This implies the supersession of the Sinaitic covenant.

But for practical purposes, even in contemporary Judaism, the Sinaitic covenant has come to an end. It was based on and intermeshed with the Aaronic priesthood and the sacrificial system. The Sinaitic covenant does not authorize the method by which the rabbis wave those requirements. The fact is that the land and people have not had old-covenant prescribed atonement for at least 1900 years. The people are living outside of the Law.

--editor

Anakim

I'm hoping you can help me locate documentation of the existence of skeletons of the "giants" of Gath (Anakim).  That is, the hometown of Goliath.

--Tim Schlueter

We know of no present-day verification of these giants in the scholarly literature.

--editor

Page last edited: 01/02/06 05:17 PM